Opinion: End of the Open Internet?

Editorial board member Mary Kissel on a vote to give governments more power online.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... welcome back to Opinion Journal I'd mind joined now by editorial page member Mary Kissel ... vetoing rare and great to be listed and could be with ... you know people think the internet it's all was on all was open and that was till the United Nations wrap their arms around over the weekend and ... it made the door may not be quite as open as ... people expected what happened over the weekend Mary ... while den something called the International Telecommunication Union met in Dubai ... over the last two weeks I have a hundred and ninety three members ... India's sensibly meant to update the nineteen eighty eight Treaty ... now notice in the name of the ITU is telecommunications not ... certain that the ITU has ... bigger plans ... and may force throughout with I should say forced ... using unconventional means a vote taken at one thirty am in the morning on Thursday ... on a date to sneak through a resolution ... that effectively extends their authority to ... oversight of ... the internet and what ... what what does ... permit governments to do with the internet inside the borders of their countries well the so the debate about the stand because we Ardi have Internet censorship in many parts of the world ... China's great firewall assuming we've written extensively about ... Russia wants to block things that they call ... the security for security purposes its religious censorship by another name Arab nations do it ... African nations do it ... um so what the site's EU treaty effectively diocese a ... deal and will give its imprint or ... to these various kinds of censorship in two times that they cited were ... spam although they didn't quit stamina treating and by the way ... I dare anybody to read this treaty ... and figure out exactly what it stands as the daily decay ... the language is to say I impenetrable and they also addressed the security ... that being said there were some other very very destructive measures ... that the US Australia and other allies ... were able to push back on so that's the good news it was pushed by countries like Russia or China or ran some of Europe's States and as you just said United States and Australia is on salad hollow did they get their heads handed to them the so-called creators of the internet that solemn anyhow in the hang on a second because there are countries like France ... that didn't side with United States on certain managers who was on all of our traditional allies ... were on board immediately same goes for India ... India originally was in the group with Russia and China ... I it wanting to basically into worst censorship ... on hand and the U S today that enhance the multiplier will frankly speaking ... their majority of countries in the world today ... that ... support censorship and the misstatements in the United States made ... was allowing this conference ... in IndiGo fourth ... in the first place ...